Sleep Heals
by obara
Summary: As ten-year-old Jaime Lannister recovers from a fever that nearly took him, Tywin watches over the boy. Response to a fic request asking for a ficlet where Tywin takes care of Jaime (more specifically: "father/son cuteness").


Tywin sighed as he pulled the scarlet curtains of his son's bedchamber closed. It was high noon and sunny, so the Rock was gleaming, but the boy had just fallen asleep, his fever finally broken after two days of Tywin all but tying covers around him trying to make him sweat it out. The maester had been in until the boy's fever broke, at which point he had asked to be excused to get some sleep for himself and had suggested that Tywin do the same. Until only a few hours earlier, Jaime had been crying for his mother, something Tywin could hardly take.

It had been but a year since Joanna had died, while she had been giving birth to that hidious thing in a chamber on the other side of the Rock. Even thinking about her made Tywin swallow a lump in his throat, and he had almost left the maester alone to sit with his son until the boy's delusional shouting came to an end. He sat in the near-darkness, hearing his son's uneven breathing. He could hear Cersei raving outside of the heavy door, trying to get past the guard Tywin had put there specifically to keep her out of her brother's sickroom. Cersei was a girl and not the heir of Lannister he was raising Jaime to be, but Tywin could not risk losing his only other whole child to this fever.

Instead of having Cersei in the sick room with her twin brother, where she would likely lie next to him and contract whatever illness Jaime had or at the least confuse his fever dreams more than they already were, Tywin had instructed her to go to the sept and pray for her brother through her waking hours.

But she was her father's daughter, as stubborn as him on his worst day. He was not surprised when the headstrong girl didn't listen.

Tywin could not make out the words she was saying to the guard outside of the room, but she was undoubtedly lording her birth position over his and threatening to have him slain or skinned or moved to duty in the dungeons, as she often tried with his guards. It had even worked. Once.

He didn't bother going outside to deal with her. The girl was too stubborn to listen to him when it came to Jaime. The two were unnaturally close, Tywin thought, but with Joanna being gone, he figured it was for the best that the children at least had one another to occupy their free time. But gods knew it was hard, even with his severe nature, to keep Cersei from dressing in Jaime's clothes and trying to swordfight with him, and to keep Jaime's attention when teaching him his lessons. The boy was six or seven years beyond the age he should have begun reading, but he could barely make a sentence.

Four hours passed before Tywin heard a calm knock on the door. He stood, his muscles beginning to become sore from sitting in the same position for so long. He stretched each of his legs before walking towards to the door. Upon pressing the latch and slowly pulling the heavy wooden monstrosity open, he saw his daughter standing there with a tray in her hands. On the tray were three platters, one with a bowl of soup and two with a proper meal. Her arms were shaking from the odd balance of the soup and the weight of the tray overall.

"I had hoped I might eat supper with you and Jaime, Father," the girl said, her voice hoarse from all the yelling she had been doing. This was surprising, even to Tywin: the girl who thought her father's gold and status meant she owned the world had lowered herself to the position of a serving wench, if only to glimpse her twin brother.

Tywin narrowed one eye, making his decision, before stepping backward to allow Cersei access to the room. He pointed to the side table, on which sat the one lit candle in the darkened room. "Set Jaime's soup there. And do not get too near your brother."

Cersei nodded, though she was already staring intently at the boy. She stepped through the shadowy room, careful not to trip and fall. As she set down the tray before moving the bowl of soup, Tywin said, "I will feed your brother. Take the other food back to the kitchen. If he feels well enough after eating, I will send for you and you may come in for a moment."

The girl nodded once more and walked out of the room, more quickly this time, her eyes never leaving her brother. Tywin could tell by her manner that she wanted to argue, to stay with her twin, but she also knew that her father never said anything he did not intend for to happen. As soon as she was out of the room, Tywin closed the door and immediately went over to his son, whose breathing he hadn't been able to hear over Cersei's footsteps. Sure enough, Jaime still breathed unevenly, but breathing he was. Tywin eased himself down onto the bed and pushed the boy's golden hair back from his sweat-slicked forehead with his left hand. His son looked so peaceful after days of miserable, fitful delusions. By all accounts, the fever should have taken him - something Tywin had refused to prepare himself for. His son was a Lannister, his son was stronger than that, the gods would not, could not have done that to his house, to him. They had taken his wife, they could not take his son. His only real son.

"Jaime," Tywin spoke, his voice soft in a rare moment of escaped emotion. It had come out more of a sob than a statement. "Jaime, wake up. It's time to eat your supper. You haven't eaten in days."

The boy opened his gold-green eyes slowly, blinking often in the near-darkness of the room. Tywin figured he would have looked around, but the boy was undoubtedly still sore from the fever, as he would be for several days yet. "Father?" he whispered, his throat still raw from the illness. "Father, what's wrong?"

"You've been ill, Jaime. You haven't eaten in days."

"Why is it so dark?"

"Because you've been sleeping. Sleep heals, the Maester says."


End file.
